


And So They Dreamed

by WhyDontWeBegin



Category: Fate/Grand Order, Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dreams, Expressing things?? What's that??? Merlin and Solomon don't know her, F/M, Fluff, Friendship, Gudako got another nickname, I don't know how to tag this really, Merlin and Solomon both struggle with Feelings, Merlin is a Little Shit, Merlin is also not involved until the third installment, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Burn, Snow, Solomon doesn't know his trees, Vague Things, could expand beyond this if people actually like it enough, if you want you can interpret it as the Male version though, ill just be writing for fem!Ritsuka, it works better for my puny brain, merlin makes a promise, mostly soft stuff, not yet but he will, on technicality anyways, potential for Doctor Who references later on, reaaallly putting the 'slow' in there, romance later friendship now, smol children are smol, the Ritsuka in question is the female version, the slowest of slow burns, this is mostly just a self-indulgent dump because let these two dumb boys be HAPPY, trippy dream stuff, whacky dreams that defy the space-time continuum
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2020-12-14 05:17:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21010355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhyDontWeBegin/pseuds/WhyDontWeBegin
Summary: Time and space mattered not here. That was something they learned quickly.Or: Solomon befriends people from the future, but they can only meet in dreams. One of them he is quite fond of, and the other... less so. (Even if the scummy mage seems awfully intent on worming into his heart anyways.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is mostly self-indulgent trash because I love these two to death, thanks
> 
> please note this has absolutely no correlation to the our king series either because that's a whole different bag of worms this will be used to get away from

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Such a vague, fleeting thing.

At first, he was confused. He was facing the streets of Jerusalem, but they were deserted. Everything was there except for the people.

He heard laughter from behind. Heard wind rustling through trees, and a foreign smell invaded his senses. There was a tinkling sound, and he found it beautiful. He turned.

Behind him was not his home. It was somewhere else. There was a tree he couldn’t recognize, its leaves hanging in long strands that brushed against the ground. Several of them, in fact, along with a few other specimens he didn’t know of. He heard the water on the shore before he saw the lake, but it wasn’t what caught his attention.

There was a girl. Her hair was a vibrant orange that made him think of flames. She was barefoot, in a plain white dress that reached to her knees. Her back was to him, but she didn’t seem to be that much younger than the young prince.

She looked back at him over her shoulder and his lips parted in shock. Her eyes were only a shade darker than her hair. They were bright, sparkling with innocence and life. She turned fully to face him, tilting her head, and he determined that he was right. She couldn’t have been more than a year younger than he was, and five seemed about right. Her curious look broke into a wide grin.

She approached, a bounce in her step and curiosity in her eyes, and offered her hand to him. He took a single step and reached forward before it all faded to nothing.

Solomon woke up.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This time is not so fleeting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please note that when Solomon speaks, it's In italics because it's in Hebrew instead of English! Its whacky enough that they understand each other despite the language barrier, and I attribute that to weird dream bs.
> 
> as always, all mistakes are my own!

It had been a dream. He’d only realized after the fact, then, but now he recognized it immediately. He was there again, where he’d began before, but when he turned around there was only more of the road. More of Jerusalem, deserted as it was.

He was alone.

And then he wasn’t. Before his eyes, everything shimmered and shifted, brown and orange stone melting into green. This time, the lake and it’s surrounds were shrouded in night, where Jerusalem was still lit by the day. It seemed more… real, this time, almost. Like he was more present.

Solomon found it was hard to articulate such a notion, even in his own thoughts. He walked up to the point where the stone of the main road turned to grass and looked down. Then he looked back up, sucking in a breath and recoiling to find that girl from last time right in front of him. She grinned and giggled.

“Hello there!”

He didn’t know that language. The words were strange to him, and yet he understood her perfectly. She seemed like she was waiting for a response, he realized, watching him expectantly.

_“… Hello.”_

She blinked, expression shifting from expectant to confused, her lips parting and her head tilting as she stared at him like she was trying to figure something out. Her hair fell around her shoulders in waves, framing her face. He felt his cheeks warming and something strange in his chest. This girl was… absolutely adorable.

She recovered. “I’m Ritsuka! It’s nice to meet you!”

He took a moment, brow pinching as he blinked. He’d never heard a name like that. _“_R…re… ri…”

She hummed in thought, trying her nickname. “Gudako?”

His response to that was his face screwing up in confusion and a cute little noise. She puffed out one cheek and reached up to lift some of his hair out of his face and get a better look at his eyes. They were such a pretty color, one she hadn’t seen on someone before. Nor had she seen someone with white hair like his before, and it was soft and fluffy against her skin. “What’s your name?”

He took a moment to catch back up before answering. _“My name is Solomon…”_

“Well, Solomon! Since you’re having so much trouble with mine, give me a nickname!”

He blinked a few times in surprise, feeling his cheeks warming again as she took a few steps back and clasped her hands behind her, leaning forward and smiling at him. She seemed… awfully excitable. So much more human than he was. He thought for a moment and almost couldn’t think of anything, but a name popped into his mind and he spoke before he could think on it.

_“… Athalia. I’ll call you Athalia.”_

Athalia squealed and surged towards him. He took a step back in surprise, falling over when she tackled him in a hug. Excitable indeed.

He managed to prop himself up into a half-sitting position while she looked up at him, grinning like the very human child she was. That was the last thing he saw before he woke.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merlin finds himself in an unexpected, unforeseen, and ill prepared-for situation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merlin is confused. Poor guy. For reference, Solomon and 'Athalia' have met twice now (not counting the first dream, since that was more or less a staring competition) and Merlin is confused as heck. Atm Gudako is 5, Solomon is 6, and Merlin is 10 (from Gudako's point of view, since this is whacked time shenanigans and precious little makes sense)  
just thought I'd clarify a little!
> 
> as always, all mistakes are my own. Please enjoy my trashfic~

He opened his eyes. The flowers shifted around him as he blinked once, twice, and turned.

Snow.

A chilled wind hit him, and he heard laughter. He hummed inquisitively, took one step, two, to where grass and flowers alike began to frost over. He could see his breath form a little cloud in the chilled air as he progressed, snow crunching under his shoes.

To his surprise, the chill didn’t bite as harshly as he expected. He blew iridescent white locks out of his eyes, not even blinking when they fell back into his vision even as something dark flashed inside him for a single moment. It was drowned out by a sudden wave of external childish joy and he looked up.

Before him was a little house in the grove of pines, a log cabin with a swing on the front porch and a chimney, smoke floating up into the sky. Snow fell around him, but he zeroed in on the little orange-haired girl sitting on the steps, clearly dressed for the weather, though the style of clothing seemed both distantly familiar and incredibly odd. Her nose was red regardless, but she was grinning. Her eyes, more vibrant than her hair, were shining with innocence and joy that he could taste heavy on his tongue, thick like when he let chocolate melt in his mouth.

She blinked once, expression shifting to mild confusion, and turned to look at him, tilting her head. Her brow was pinched, and he felt another fleeting emotion, warm and bright in his chest.

“I haven’t seen you before. Who are you?”

Again, familiar yet so, very different, but he understood her perfectly. In fact, he found he could even adapt to her way of speaking with ease.

“I.. I’m Merlin. Pardon me, but- this is a dream, is it not?”

She blinked at him a few times before giggling, and Merlin wasn’t quite sure why. His expression remained impassive.

“You’re right, it is a dream,” she said after a moment. The girl scooted over and patted the spot next to her. “I’m Gudako, but you can just call me Athalia here! Come sit with me. I dunno how long we’ll be here, so we can pass the time by chatting!”

Merlin seemed to hesitate a moment before he humored her. He was clearly older than she was- he seemed older than Solomon, too. That didn’t particularly bother her, nor did his indifferent exterior, since Solomon was much the same. She’d work through that shell of his eventually. Gudako hummed softly in thought, staring into his eyes and Merlin stared back. He almost looked slightly uncomfortable.

“You have pretty eyes,” she finally decided. “Solomon has pretty eyes, too! Like the sun. Yours are more like a flower, though…”

“Solomon?”

Merlin felt like he should know these names, and he knew that with his clairvoyance he definitely should, but for some reason it felt like that was just out of his reach. (He wondered if the feeling he had, like his mind was muddled and murky, was confusion.) A burst of emotions hit him, too many for him to describe, but the flavors mixed together in a wonderful way he relished in. It felt so _warm_, reminding him of the sun, and refreshing like the cool water of a spring, all at once. He decided that he very much enjoyed that.

“Mhm! It’s hard to explain, and we’ve only met a couple of times, but he’s a nice person! I like him,” Athalia said, grinning, and Merlin found he wanted to know more. (He wondered if that was curiosity.) “He’s kind of like you, though.”

Now Merlin was back with that strange feeling, like he wasn’t sure where he was or what he was doing and his mind was foggy. “What do you mean?”

“He’s kind of closed off. Always looks bored, but I think he just doesn’t really know how to express his feelings. I’ve only gotten him to smile once, you know! Also… you’re both pretty. Not in the same way, but you are. You’re more… super…natural? I think that’s the word for it? It’s like you’re not really human. Solomon’s kind of like that, in a way, but warmer? I don’t really know how to put it…”

“No, no, I think I understand what you mean,” Merlin said quietly, tilting his head. He opted to omit the part where he _wasn’t_ fully human. That seemed like it’d be difficult to explain to someone like her, innocent and naive as she was.

“Oh, okay. That’s good,” she hummed, looking off into the distance, and something about her expression struck a chord in him. _Loneliness_, he realized once the flavor hit him. Merlin wasn’t sure why but he didn’t like it at all right now, even if it usually didn’t bother him that much. On a whim, he reached out and wrapped a lock of her hair around a finger. It was softer than he expected, but still caught her attention regardless. _She’s confused._

“I haven’t seen anyone with hair like this before,” he explained. “The color reminds me of fire.”

“Oh.” And then, “You have a funny accent.”

“So do you, Athalia” Merlin replied. She blinked before grinning again, throwing her arms around him- to his surprise. He wasn’t sure how to react at first, hesitating before he awkwardly hugged her back.

“I hope I see you again. Maybe next time, with Solomon. I think you’d like him.”

“I…”

Merlin woke up before he could reply, and he wasn’t quite sure what that hollow feeling in his chest was. He immediately decided, however, that he didn’t like it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, Ritsuka wishes she was not Ritsuka at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OOOOKay I know I've been TOTALLY DEAD for a WHILE in this fandom but I am back on my bullshit all around apparently HELLO have some more Solomon and Ritskua!  
also it's very strange for me to write a character afraid of thunderstorms because I, personally, love them. but I digress

When Ritsuka went to sleep, she hoped to wake in that dream world. The one where she wasn’t Ritsuka Fujimaru, the girl who had imaginary friends and got picked on for it. Where she wasn’t Gudako, being told by her parents that she was five and needed to _stop saying things like-_

She wanted to be Athalia, the little girl who met Solomon (and Merlin, once) in her dreams. Just for a little while.

But her sorrow clung to her, and when she became aware it was storming while she sat underneath one of the willows by the lake. It wasn’t any place she could recall seeing before, this landscape, but it had a number of things she liked.

Athalia didn’t like thunderstorms. She hated them, the loud crack and boom scared her, but she didn’t know how to _get rid of it and she was crying-_

_“Athalia, are you okay?”_

A warm hand landed on her shoulder. She looked at Solomon, took in his concerned expression, the way his brow was slightly furrowed and there was the faintest trace of a frown on his lips. He was wet- come through the storm, a part of her realized, but _she didn’t care, she didn’t care because-_

Solomon was stunned into silence when Athalia all but threw herself against him, shaking and crying. She flinched when the thunder boomed overhead, and it occurred to him that she was scared of it. He hesitantly wrapped his arms around her, holding her against his form, hand on the back of her head. _“Athalia?”_

The only response gained was a muffled sob against his chest. He did not know _why_ she was crying, but it didn’t matter, did it? Solomon considered what he could do to comfort her, settling for combing though her hair with his fingers.

Neither of them were sure how much time had passed when she calmed, though Athalia still clung to Solomon, still whimpered when the lightning crashed and the thunder rolled. Now, perhaps, he could find out what was wrong. _“Athalia? Do you want to talk about it?”_  
  
She shook her head, and he sighed softly. That was okay. In time, the storm calmed, and they remained under the tree in companionable silence.

When Ritsuka awoke, she could still feel Solomon’s warmth. She closed her eyes for a moment with a smile. No matter what anyone else said, she knew.

She knew her friend was real.


End file.
